Keane to ban the 'P' words

By NEIL HALLAM

Last updated at 14:09 22 January 2007

Sheffield Wednesday 2 Sunderland 4

Roy Keane may scorn the mere mention of the “P” words – promotion and play-offs – but Sunderland’s players had no such reticence despite his hard words about a profligate performance that carried them within a fraction of the top six.

"Promotion? I never give it a thought," scoffed Keane. "I don’t get bogged down with League tables. Look after your performances, get them right and the table will look after itself."

But when Swedish winger Tobias Hysen was told of his manager’s dismissive response he insisted: “Of course the players are talking about promotion. It is discussed all the time.

“We still believe that there is time for us to make it to the Premiership by automatic promotion and if we can’t achieve that we must finish as high as possible so that we can go into the play-offs with a lot of confidence.

“Everything at Sunderland is geared for returning to the Premiership and I am sure it is in the boss’s mind because he is always telling us that we have got the best squad at this level.”

Best squad or not, Keane made it plain that he is still keen to do more business during a transfer window that has already seen him clear out eight players to raise the £3.9million spent to recruit Anthony Stokes from Arsenal, Carlos Edwards from Luton and Marton Fulop from Spurs.

“I’m always looking to improve things,” he admitted. “There’s still a week or ten days to go before the window closes and a lot more can happen in that time.

“We are making progress but we are taking baby steps and performances like this one don’t help.

“We made a decent start and got a good result but the game was disappointing because we gave sloppy goals away and had players doing their own thing and running with the ball instead of just passing the bloody thing.

“At three down and with a stack of problems in defence, Wednesday should have been dead and buried but we encouraged them to get back in the game.

“We got away with it but I wouldn’t have complained about a draw because Wednesday showed a lot of spirit and probably deserved something.”

Wednesday went into the game with four senior defenders ruled out by injury or suspension and lost two more, makeshift left-back Burton O’Brien and reserve central defender Graham Coughlan, with serious injuries before Hysen added a second goal to the one poached by Dwight Yorke.

A third Sunderland goal from David Connolly only spurred a brave Wednesday side to hit back with two goals in five minutes from Chris Brunt and Wade Small but Edwards’ close-range finish two minutes later stifled this rousing fight-back.

“All we can do about that result is put it down to experience and then bin it,” said Wednesday manager BrIan Laws.

“We faced an uphill battle even before the start and things got so steep as to be virtually impossible when we lost two more defenders and had to patch up with people operating out of position.

“I’m sure Roy is disappointed that we came back at them with such character but I rate him and his squad very highly.

“I fancy them to be there or thereabouts for promotion and if we show this sort of spirit when everybody is fit and available, maybe we can get up were on their coat-tails.”

Brunt, a winger forced to operate as an emergency left-back, added: “There was a time when we might have lain down and rolled over in that situation but we are made of sterner stuff these days.

“A lot of clubs would have folded at three down but we rolled our sleeves us for a real go at them and for a while it was anybody’s game.”